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Small animals - Mice Breeding

Mouse breeding is only to be considered if you have a planned home for the offspring - there will be a lot of them! Preventing mice breeding may be your actual reason for researching this information. Any unplanned breeding can be a domestic nightmare. If you don't want baby mice - don't leave a male and a female together ever!

Sexing your breeding mouse is fairly easy. Your mature females will have bare nipples and the distance between the anus and urethral opening is shorter than in the mature male mouse, whose scrotum or ball sac should be obvious.

Female mice have a double womb shaped like a 'Y' so she can carry lots of babies! She is usually sexually mature from the age of six weeks at the earliest and definitely by eight weeks. Mice can breed all year round, with the female coming into season every four to seven days. The pregnancy lasts between 19 to 21 days and a litter size between four and seven pups is the norm.

If you are planning on mouse breeding then there are three usual ways of managing the events

a. You can marry off two mice and house them together in a regular size cage and they will do the rest.

b. You can house a male mouse with up to half a dozen females in a fairly large cage and remove the females to a nursery cage as they become obviously pregnant.

c. House the mice as in B, but in a larger cage with multiple nesting chambers and leave the pregnant mice in the cage to go full term and just remove the young as they become mature.

Mice usually give birth at night. The pups are born deaf, blind and appear hairless. They find their mothers milk by sense of smell and are fully furred by ten days. The pups must not be handled until they are fully haired at the earliest! They are best left until they are two weeks old and have their eyes open. They still can't hear until they are three weeks old, howver, they are fully weaned off mother's milk by the age of one month at the longest and three weeks at the earliest.

Once young mice are weaned they can be treated the same as you would an adult mouse. If you are planning on breeding fancy mice then you can get into the science of genetics - breeding to obtain specific fur colour and type together with specific eye colours. You could specialise in albino mouse breeding.

Remember do not venture into the breeding of mice unless you have a home(s) for the offspring.

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